SOUTH ASIA: Nepal (Dialogue)

Think mutual benefit

Three sets of issues present themselves to the two prime ministers.
The first is about India’s attitude to the internal turbulence in Nepal.
India’s Nepal policy, however, is not about choosing sides between the Maoists and other political formations
The political chatter in Kathmandu about Bhattarai being “pro-India” and Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) as “pro-China” has little policy consequence in Delhi.
India is eager to hear from Bhattarai on how he wants to lead Nepal’s current political crisis by wrapping up the work on the drafting of the constitution and integrating Maoist fighters into the national army on reasonable terms.
The second set of issues relates to regional security and geopolitics.
The China factor, however, must be put in some perspective. As the world’s second largest economy and a rising power, China’s footprint is growing across the world, and India’s periphery in the subcontinent is no exception.
Kathmandu’s attempts to balance between Delhi and Beijing date back to the early 1960s.
Bhattarai’s propositions that Nepal must be a bridge and not a buffer between China and India and seek cooperation from both for its national advancement are unexceptionable.
The 1950 treaty of peace and friendship between the two countries. The Maoists have long denounced the 1950 treaty as unequal and hegemonic.
While insisting that a revision of the treaty is not at the top of his priorities now, Bhattarai has called for the formation of an “eminent persons group” to reconsider its various provisions.
Delhi has been willing to discuss the future of the treaty. At the end of Prachanda’s visit to India in 2008, the two sides had agreed to “review, adjust and update”
The lack of political stability in Nepal and the immense consequences of tampering with some of the unique features of the treaty — like India’s “national treatment” to Nepali citizens — are some of the reasons for the lack of real progress
India’s own political will on modernising the historic treaty arrangements with its smaller neighbours was reflected in the revision of the 1949 India-Bhutan treaty in 2006.
Equally significant have been the two recent partnership agreements that India has signed with Bangladesh in September and Afghanistan in October.
That brings to the third set of issues on trade and economic development
Bhattarai has pointed to the fact that nearly two-thirds of Nepal’s international trade is with India and only 10 per cent with China.
Delhi must also act to reduce Nepal’s growing trade deficit with India. In its own enlightened self-interest, Kathmandu must “depoliticise” economic cooperation with India.